The present invention relates to improvements in data acquisition in scanning radar systems and more particularly to a new system and technique for providing multi-mode radar viewing with a single scanning radar antenna.
In the prior art, a variety of different radar modes could be used to provide the best possible information for any given operational environment. Depending on the terrain, weather conditions, type of target being viewed, and various other factors, any given radar will provide information that will be highly accurate and useful for some purposes and insufficient for others. While in some instances a plurality of different radars can be combined to obtain the best characteristics of each radar type, the restrictions imposed by hardware and space limit the number of modes that can be used economically and efficiently, and increase the complexity of the overall system.
As an alternative to a plurality of separate radars, it is known to use a scanning two-dimensional search radar which can be operated in several modes such as pulse doppler, MTI, frequency agile, or other known radar modes. While such a system can reduce the cost and complexity of the radar, hardware limitations, such as receiver blockage, restrict operation of the radar to one mode at a time and thereby reduce data acquisition in the radar system. As a result, in order to effectively cover the surveillance volume with all modes of operation, the antenna must be rotated slower, or the mode changed from scan to scan. In either case, very low data rates are obtained for a given mode of operation.
Accordingly, the present invention has been developed to overcome the specific shortcomings of the above known and similar techniques and to provide a system and technique for improving radar data acquisition in a scanning radar.